Category: 2014

And most often than not, most of us are up, sling bags on, wallets in the pocket, walking out of the lab down the staircase to one of the canteens. Once there we may not drink chai at all. We may order for a samosa or a chicken puffs or a cup of coffee, extra strong, sometimes stronger, two cups may be three… or a cool drink from the refrigerator or a packet of piri piri.

Even then, none of us would say let’s go for a cool drink, or let’s go for a samosa.

Let’s go for chai has become a metaphor for a break… a jargon so called we carry around among us for which our response is, in 5 or just had .. or may be after an hour..

Let’s go for chai becomes that point at which a break becomes the ventilation to exhale the clutter of the working mind to take in newer ideas.. brainstorm some thing else, chat a little, gossip some more… give the mind some air… some other conversations outside work so that we can come back refreshed, may be fresher than we were a few minutes ago at the laptop or the reading table or the lab to continue with our work. The walk down to one of the canteens, the outside of the lab.. newer faces.. and the face of the canteen fellow.. who knows exactly how you want your coffee… let’s go for chai, in 4 words sums it all up..

I’m at the window looking out at the sky and the leaves drenched in the rains, the pebbles wet with the rain waters… the dust has been cleared and cleaned, the grime has been washed out… (that would be hyperbole :D) looks like nature is showing the way and is saying .. last day of 2014, wash yourself up and get on with 2015….. Nature could be saying that, after all we are good at interpretations, aren’t we!

The highlight of this year was that I had a lot of food experiences… I had fun with the oven …. the two times I was home for a longer vacation, I baked to my heart’s content… to which my father thought I had on me some little baking demon, it was breads, biscuits, cookies, buns, rolls and cakes and everything that could be baked, .. everyday for breakfast and snacks .. it was fun to bake and see my folks enjoy the meal.. (cooking is also about people enjoying the meal and asking for more ( …)

and then the big christmas party where nearly a 100 folks turned up at home… it is tradition here to start the do with cakes… and my mother planned homemade cakes this time round, …1, 2, 3… and it went on to 6 or 7, I’m not sure how many, but bake I did under her vigilant eyes, she did not let me experiment at all, for she wanted tried and tested recipes… By the penultimate cake I was fed up, and told MJ, baking cannot be my alternative career option, I just couldn’t and wasn’t interested to bake one more, so she told me to bake any of my favourite flavours, with that little enthusiasm creeping it, I went on to bake a carrot cinnamon.. the carrots that always give a softness to its cakes and a different kind of sweetness 😛

My dear baking folks,

I admire you, how do you retain your interest after baking cake after cake…after a point, I did not want to bake at all, neither watching the rising of the cakes from outside the oven nor the smells circled the kitchen nor the flavours that were in them nor the decor to come enticed me into making one more..

nevertheless, at the end of the day, the satisfaction of people who love cakes relishing it made my evening … you can just see that glimpse of awe and joy they have while they bite into a piece of cake and find something unexpected .. and love their find.. the hidden treasures of surprising people with a cake .. 🙂 (but then you need to know cakes to enjoy them)

The year saw the baking and the travelling bug bite me .. I’ve traveled far and wide across the country this year for work and for meeting friends, lovely food times… tasted many new dishes, got to know a few more people, had more parties and fun, wrote a few more blog posts,

……and finally it has been a year where I’ve come to realize I’m a muse to a few and I am proud that I am a reasonably gooooood girl who loves to make more than a few people happy and people will find it extremely hard to destabilize me.

Like this:

A christmas without a cake sounds as desserted as a lonely mind, whatever there may be, a cake is a must for christmas …. however, lazy I may be, christmas never ever goes away without getting into th3 baking gloves…. since everybody wanted a home made cake, and there were plenty of oranges in the fruit basket, off I went to google to look out for a recipe for an orange cake … christmas after all it is the season to be happy and jolly and have loads of fun…. and loads of cake .. What did we bake finally, we baked a sponge with a tinge of orange in it …

the fun part of oranges in cakes is when we bake it at night and wake up in the morning, we wake up to an orangey home… mmmmmm ….. you need experience it to know it… so try it if you haven’t..

the freshness of the orange spreads from inside the oven through the kitchen to the other rooms, it is almost as if the frangrance of the oranges tickles our noses in our sleep and wakes us up to the christmas morning…. in addition, there are those orange rays of the sun that seeps in through the windows….taking away the chill from the mornings and getting us fired up for the christmas day ..

i tell you…..

christmas mornings with oranges are the bestest …

so, here goes …. presenting to you the cake from our household ….

may the orange flavour spread from our home to yours, have fun everyone, end of the year this one, be good, be nice and have a wonderful time 🙂 santa may still be roaming around to distribute his gifts, be naice 🙂

Like this:

After long contemplation, I came to a conclusion that I cannot exist with you saner lot of people. However, I really admire you people, on a serious note, you who can be different people in different places, have a stock of masks in your cupboard and can put up so many appearnaces whenever you want and excel at it. That’s respect coming your way.

I have difficulty carrying my one crazy mad self around and then I forget to carry those masks and forget what I’ve said to you before, if it is a lie, I get caught very easily 😉 😉 imagine the sorry face I cut!!

That’s why I said, I can’t befriend you saner lot, I tend to pick up fights with you because you say things from behind curtains and then say somethings else during other times. And you expect me to know!!!! I who have no curtains at home and feel claustrophobic behind one and sneeze a ton with the dust of that curtain!

So, being with you is so difficult for I need to put pressure on my little brains why you have said this and there and my little nose, it goes red sneezing, you know!! … so it is better we are not friends, it is better you sit with people who have 100 masks, and know how to act and be good when you are not, so when each of you meet you all know what you are and know you are acting unlike my mad crazy simple friends who have just one self, and are not ashamed of their craziness and the madness they are in. We do not pretend to be crazy, we accept it graciously 😀 😀

We can laugh at nonsense, we can laugh at ourselves, we can put our heads together seriously over a cause, we are adept at playing cards or ready to make somebody smile spontaneously in the open, since we dont believe in saying and doing things behind curtains.

We can become santas, we can take part as elves and go on sleigh rides, drop down chimneys and make people believe in Santa Claus and joy. So it is always better we stay away from each other… we will never be sane like you, we dont want to be for if we are so truthfully sane we may give you competition. So to avoid such…. until next year, a merry christmas from the crazier lo

Like this:

There are days when my body feels it wants to sleep some more, but I would be tugging it out of bed to take it some place else other than the cosy bed. So a few more days of this tugging the body out of bed without adequate rest, and just thinking of a lot of other things including work, my body decided to take a break.

It all started one evening, when I felt extremely sleepy, I just couldn’t leave my eyes open even for a few minutes. I headed back to the room and all I can remember is I went off to sleep. I slept the entire night. I woke up with a fever the next day. Fever, body ache… Since more than a few people I know are down with Dengue, I ran to the hospital. This one doctor is one good soul, his humour takes away half of my illness almost always. He says come back in two days if you are feeling weak.. no blood test required, this is no dengue!

I wake up this morning to feel all good. I woke up feeling me. I woke up feeling back to yahoooo! kind of me, no fever, no aches, although there is a memory of the fever that visited these past so many days.. For in the last few days it has been really tough… waking up to aching legs and an aching back.. and a hottter body! add to it the sudden chilly weather that hit the city!

There are times when we learn lessons. Nature could be an overall term to refer to. It could be people, it could insects, it could be our own bodies. Our bodies I would say are lovely teachers. They adapt, everyday, to our uncharted scheduled routines. But rest it should get otherwise it may just go on strike 🙂

Like this:

It is a particular kind of joy when we connect immediately to something out there, most of the time. Just like in the case of the street art that has surfaced on Kochi walls from this anonymous bandwagon, Guess Who.

A certain generation of Malayalees since the 1980s grew up with the two comic book characters Kuttoosan and Dakini. Balarama a children’s magazine in Malayalam was published from the newspaper giant, Malayala Manoroma since 1970s (1972 or 74). Mayavi became part of it in 1984 or so.

Kuttoosan and Dakini are part of this series titled Mayavi created by NM Mohan along with Pradeep Sarthe (Sarthe was part of ACK and Indrajal for a long time, so many of our known comic characters were drawn by him) … where these two old people are a wizard and a witch, they live in a forest and play villains along with their little red devil Lutappi to a seemingly innocent school going pair of Raju and Radha. Mayavi is Raju’s and Radha’s friend, he is their friendly spirit who comes to their help all the time but who is also in constant threat from being trapped in a bottle by the villainous trio, so the rescue acts is circular.

This was our staple weekly/fortnightly reading, a few pages long, and short enough to have an episode as part of one issue of Balarama.

To find these two characters in the guise of Superman and Superwoman.. wow! Guess Who folks have done right, 4 characters we have grown up with put together in one picture in a frame of the trending topic of #Kissing and the kiss of love campaign which brings back memories of all four and a perspective and a new spin on them as well. Now, the thought never crossed my mind that Kutooosan and Dakini were living together but they could have been, one does not know 😛 neither did the thought that Raju and Radha as a pair.. they looked more like siblings at that time…

In hindsight, I realize that the creators of Mayavi did not let us think of such angles.. such is also the case in Manichitratazhru.., (a different genre, and a different argument all together … ) where as a audience for the first time, we never realized that Ganga played by Shobana was the one causing all the ruckus… something in the way stories are narrated…

Kochi opens up to Graffiti and street art.. I’m glad… the icons they have chosen are just right.. they are outright funny as they fuse together what is very Malayalee to the Western world mostly. The one with the Joker was impressive. I love their brains and thoughts, of whoever is behind these ideas and execution.

On second thoughts.. I just noticed that Lutappi is spotting a robe in the above picture. Has he grown up, or was there a popular demand for a robe to cover him up.. I wonder.. because as far as I can remember, Lutappi was this red coloured devil with just one piece of garment, like in this picture. Wonder what are the other changes..

Sitting far away from Cochin, more than a few of us love these posts from GuessWho on FB 🙂 I’m itching to get back there to see all this in real, photos of pics.. slightly doubly removed from reality .. (Plato may be impressed with me for once 😛 :P)

where we think of the “it is not a mountain, it is a wave” scene from Interstellar ..

where God as a concept is taken out and looked at as a very scientific and natural phenomenon.

A cursory look at the re-presentation of the 10 plagues in the film, and it shows how natural it is.. one calamity follows the next.. the first plague was brilliantly done how the water turned red..I think all of them.. the boils, the darkness, the locusts, the frogs.. the thunder..

God as a child, God as a hallucination.. God as talking to one’s own self… God as drinking Tea .. (I think I need to start loving tea ya 😀 :P)

There are many diversions from the Biblical story I have read or read through out my life until now.. or heard from the many other sources.. To enjoy the film one does not need to know the story, but if one knows, it is definitely a leverage.

For instance, the scene about the parting of the Red Sea.. all my life, in my mind, I pictured it as Moses taking his stick and striking the water once, miraculously the sea parts into two, into two huge walls of water, two walls that nearly touch the sky… making a way through the sea bed for the Israelites to pass through.

The water on both sides as a wall is akin to that of a walk in room sized aquarium… water and fishes on all sides, and we as spectators walk in to see the fish, real size, in real time..

In this film, the sea withdraws.. there is a sword, there is a striking .. there is Moses.. but the reason for the water to recede is the low tide ..that is where the practicality of the situation walks in, in this Scott movie…. I could relate to this low tide so completely because I have been to a beach like this in Valsad, many times over… where during low tides, the water recedes so much so that the beach goers can walk into the sea.. into the insides of the ocean, into a great distance, walking over stones and rocks and groups of stones and rocks and over sand that was the sea during high tide a few hours ago and will be a few hours later… where the miracle has a grounded explanation..

The first areal shot of Egypt complete with the pyramids and the Nile is worth a watch… I think to capture the large population, the many areal views is absolutely necessary.. this is just one of the many areal shots in the film..

Then there is one with the fire arrows.. picturesque .. the one where the horse dies..

In the middle of all this, I thought, Bale fellow, or rather Moses, you were so hale and hearty as the General of Egypt, why did you ever come out of that luxurious life.. to sun burns, to hunger, to anxiety, to trouble, to hiding, …to guerrilla warfare again.. to become the rebel to lead a slave population out of a country .. Oh ya, then there is that term Slave Economy .. (one wonders)

Recommended. And then watch 10 commandments all over again, and then we are ready for a discussion..

……take any relationship for that matter, the crux of it will be some form of trust at some level. It is a trust in the programme, it is a trust in the team, it is a trust in the person, it is a trust in the data…it is the trust in the institution, .. trust in the analysis…

or the very first step.. it is a trust in our very own self.. to begin something or to wrap up something or take a call at that crucial moment…

If we break down this trust .. trust could be belief, trust could be a confidence.. trust could be hope…are they synonyms for each other.. again..

It came very soon I feel for I still remember a birthday party in March as if it happened just two weeks ago. We had gone for Queen that evening after the traditional cake cutting and gifting of gifts and all that do….. together we had a lot of fun.

I feel this is one film where I could enjoy and will enjoy with my this group of girls.. Watching it with another group of friends or alone will never make any sense to me at all.. For one, it is the same old story of a girl who finds her self…

Well I’m happy for the character, something happened that turned her life upside down which was brilliantly differently conceived of on the screen, the character played by Kangana Ranaut took it positively.. she evolved.. Hope it occurs with others as well.. Second, the film was very audience friendly and interactive.. so to have D on one side and hi5-ing for every other scene, turning to A for the French translations, and generally girl gang giggling .. well that is why the film was interesting in the first place…

On a serious note, films of this nature should be screened more often, it is a subject that needs to be thought of more often …. for the society in most parts is such. If I say my peer group is a secure set of individuals.. (you may find me arrogant that way) well, I may be saying the truth mostly, however, there are other sets of people all over, who are not.

For them, Queen matters, for them, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobora matters.. for them The Monk who Sold his Ferrari matters, for them Eat Pray Love matters, or the Chicken Soup matters… for they are taught to just work and not enjoy life, (now that would be exaggeration!..) or they just get into the rut of life so much so that they stop to enjoy it at all, or in the case of most of the people, they just can’t because of circumstances… they just can’t because they are overburdened. Even then there are these gems among these folks, whatever the matter, however, life treats them, however they are plugged down by work, they find time to be themselves or like in the protestant ethic, they work and live at the same time.. (Catholics on the other hand, have this clear cut demarcation between the worldly and spiritual lifestyles)

And the usual problems arise! Dissatisfaction! Boredom! And it is films like these, and books that pinch them out of their mundane life to take that U turn, that break… that moment such as in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, when the character played by Hrithik Roshan goes scuba diving and realizes a few life truths and he cries!! Moments of Epiphany may bring tears, not sure about that part. It takes some thing, or some one to do that for everyone.. in cases like mine, I call it upbringing, therefore, Parents.. 🙂

This last month also coincides with the Christian Lent routine for 24 days.. so I wonder, what to take off this time or what to take in as a habit.. the thumb rule is, it should be a big temptation or a something I have been dodging for a while.

However, the problem I often face during this season is, when I decide to take in or take out something … once the decision is made, it is done, there is no looking back, there is no wavering in thought or action.. the temptation stops there like that. What fun if there is no temptations.. 😛 for instance, I take off ice creams, (they are like my favourite things on earth), I will not care in the least if another person is enjoying it even when it happens in front of me. I can even go to the extent of buying it for people, and watch them enjoy.. without a thought of a craving for it.. I know, boring right 😀 😀 therefore, may be I should just work on making temptations.. that would be a good one, makes 24 more exciting days to look forward to 😛 😛

May be like last year, I should just be at it that I should not crib about the mess food.. but not eat all 4 times from the hostel mess… 🙂 Because, all 4 times from the mess can cause gastronomical complications, going on lent does not mean harming the body, does it 😉 Will think up something.. a routine is in order for the next 24 days.. and dietary routines are good, when religion tells you to follow, most people follow if we are schooled into that thought from childhood..

With December also comes Christmas .. my favourite season of year.. I love to make the crib and decorate the tree and buy new tree hangings and go walking down street markets midst the cheer.. sing carols.. it is one of the loveliest of seasons.. for me..